Geneva1897
January
Otto Hermann Kahn joins Kuhn, Loeb and Compoany, his father-in-law's
firm.
Jan 20
The remains of Civil War officer Ely Parker are buried in Red Jacket's
plot in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Feb 11
Philo McGriffin, leader of the defeated Chinese navy at Yalu River,
shoots himself to death, in New York City.
Feb 12
The New York Morning Journal claims that male Spanish
police boarded the
U. S. Steamship Olivette and strip-searched three
Cuban women on board. It's a lie.
Apr 16
Metropolitan Opera radio announcer Milton John Cross is born in New
York City.
Jun 15
Fire destroys the main immigration building at Ellis Island. All
records are lost.
Sep 27
Maude Adams opens in James M. Barrie's The Little Minister,
at New York's Empire Theatre.
Sep 28
Hugh Morton (Charles M. S. McClellan) and Gustave Kerker's The
Belle of New York opens in New York City at the Casino
Theatre.
Nov 25
Jazz composer-pianist-vocalist William Henry Joseph Bonaparte
Bertholoff "Willie the Lio"" Smith is born in Goshen.
Dec 10
The New York Morning Journal announces that their
correspondent Karl Decker has rescued the Cuban Evangelina Cisernos
from a Spanish jail in Havana.
City
Construction begins on Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz' building for the Society of
Civil Engineers on West 57th Street. ** The Yale Club, for
university alumni, is founded. ** City Court presiding judge
Robert A. Van Wyck, running on the Democratic ticket, defeats
Republican Benjamin Tracey and Citizens Union candidate Seth Low, to
become mayor, serving 1898-1901. ** Explorer Robert Peary
discovers a 38-ton meteor in Greenland, brings it back to the Museum of
Natural History. He also brings six eskimos, including the hunter Qisuk
and his young son Minik.
State
Temperance reformer Frances Willard returns to Churchville, her
birthplace, to visit an aunt. ** The R. E. Chapin Manufacturing
Works, founded in Oakfield to manufacture oil cans, moves to Batavia.
** Fishkill orders the demolition of Orson Fowler's octagonal
house, calling the rundown structure a public danger. ** A
deepening of the Erie Canal in Pittsford, into the following year,
exposes black shale and interbedded dolomite, which will be named
Pittsford Shale in 1903. ** Le Roy salt wells are producing 1,000
barrels a day. ** The widowed Lydia Avery Coonley marries
Rochester professor Henry A. Ward. ** Pearl B. Wait of Le Roy
sells he formula for Jell-O to Orator Woodward.
Rochester
A Rochester Herald search of police files covering the
city's downtown "Bowery", clears the area's record on many lurid
journalistic "scoops" of previous years. ** North Avenue becomes
Portland Avenue. ** Grain merchant J. Starkweather buys a house
on Lafayette Place formerly occupied by deputy sheriff Matthew Warren.
** The Law and Order Society generates grand jury indictments and
bench warrants are issued to baseball players for violating local laws
against playing on Sunday.
1898
Jan 1
New York City takes its present form with five boroughs - Manhattan,
Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island.
February
Willa Cather writes her final book review column for Pittsburgh's
Home Monthly. She spends a week in New York, writing
play reviews for the Sun, attending the Metropolitan
Opera and lunching with actress Helena Modjeska. ** Qisuk, one of
the Greenland Eskimo brought back to New York City by explorer Robert
Peary, dies, leaving his son Minik an orphan. After a mock funeral
Qisuk is dissected and his bones are stored in the Museum of Natural
History.
Feb 7
A new version of Lottie Blair Parker's Way Down East
opens at New York City's Manhattan Theatre.
Feb 9
Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst prints a private letter in
his New York Tribune from Senor de Lome, the Spanish
minister to the U. S., criticizing president William McKinley as
"feebleminded".
Feb 18
Temperance leader Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard dies in New York
City.
Feb 21
Frances Willard's funeral train stops in her home town of Churchville
for a day before continuing on to Evanston, Illinois, for her burial.
Mar 11
Jazz trombonist Irving Mifford "Miff" Mole is born in Roosevelt, Long
Island.
May 16
New York City's Metropolitan Opera debuts its first production of
Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme.
May 21
Businessman Armand Hammer is born in New York City.
May 25
Publisher, author and television panelist Bennett Cerf is born in New
York City. ** Boxer Gene Tunney is born in New York City.
Jul 6
Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott is born in New York City.
Jul 14
Realist painter Alexander Brook is born in Brooklyn.
Aug 1
The U. S. War Department, warned that over 3,000 of its troops in Cuba
are suffering from yellow fever, orders all healthy personnel off the
island, to be returned to Long Island's Montauk Point.
Aug 26
Art patron Peggy Guggenheim is born in New York City.
Sep 15
The American Social Science Association meets in New York City and
forms the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Sep 19
New York State's Cornell School of Forestry is established.
Sep 26
Composer George Gershwin is born in Brooklyn, New York. ** Henry
Arthur Jones' The Liars opens at New York City's
Empire Theatre.
Oct 6
Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac opens at New York
City's Garden Theater.
Oct 10
Hall Caine's The Christian opens at New York City's
Knickerbocker Theatre.
Nov 8
Theodore Roosevelt is nominated for governor of New York State by the
Republican Party.
City
Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz' headquarters building for the American Society of
Civil Engineers is completed. ** The first public high school is
opened. ** Boring & Tilton's immigrant processing center on Ellis
Island is completed. ** Fidelity Bank owner Louis Silverman
brings his son Sime to the city to become an appraiser. Sime will
rebel, found the show business weekly Variety. **
Future diplomat Stephen Bonsal reports on the Cuban revolution for
The New York Herald. ** The National Arts Club
is founded at Gramercy Park, in a mansion once owned by governor
Samuel Tilden.
State
The Brockport Normal School converts a private residence into the
Principals' residence. It will one day be Alumni House. ** Steam
tugs begin operating out of Dunkirk. ** Bragdon and Hillman's
Livingston County Courthouse opens. ** Batavia's former Brisbane
Mansion is taken over by the village. It will become City Hall.
Albany
The city gets its first effective water filtering system. **
Socialite Huibertje Pruyn marries Bostonian Charles Hamlin.
Buffalo
The School of Pegagogy at the University of Buffalo, having issued only
two doctorates, closes after four years of operation. ** Dr.
Annie Cheyney (-Spofford) erans her medical degree from the University
of Buffalo.
Rochester
The Academy of Music is gutted by a fire. ** The city's Italian
population begins a concerted attempt to get it's own Catholic Church,
an effort the will reach fruition in 1906.
1899
Jan 9
David Belasco's English-language adaptation of Pierre Berton and
Charles Simon's Zaza has it's New York City premiere
at the Garrick Theatre.
Apr 21
Composer Randall Thompson is born in New York City.
Jun 13
The Delaware and Hudson Canal is drained and abandoned.
Jun 30
Cyclist Charles "Mile-A Minute" Murphy, following a Long Island
Railroad train, breaks the 60 mph speed barrier for bicycles.
Jul 11
Author-editor E. B. (Elwyn Brooks) White born in Mount Vernon, New
York.
Jul 17
Film actor-singer-hoofer James Cagney is born in New York City.
Jul 20
New York City bootblacks and newsboys go on strike, win higher wages.
Jul 29
The first motorcycle race is held, at Manhattan Beach.
Sep 11
Construction begins on the Rochester & Sodus Bay Railway Company
interurban line.
Sep 29
New York honors Admiral Dewey upon his return from the Philippines. A
36-foot-high electric sign reading "Welcome Dewey:" is erected atop the
Brooklyn Bridge.
City
Gangster Abner "Longy" Zwillman is born in Brooklyn. ** Hugo
Hoefler's Victor Hugo apartment building at 1878 Second Avenue is
completed. ** 17-year-old Charles Ponzi arrives from Italy. **
Virginia journalist James Branch Cabell goes to work for the New
York Herald. ** Charles W. Morse's American Ice
Company is investigated by New York State anti-trust officials. He
moves his operation to Chicago. ** Developer Hamilton M. Weed,
anticipating a future subway route, buys land at the corner of 71st
Street and Broadway, for $275,000. He will have the Dorilton apartment
house built there in 1902. ** New York Central & Hudson River
Railroad staff engineer Robert Giles designs the Spuyten Duyvil
Improvement, a swing bridge built to carry trains across the Harlem
River. ** Black songwriter Gussie Lord Davis dies.
State
Dr. Annie Cheney of Detroit, Michigan's Women's and Children's Hospital
moves to Batavia and begins a practice. ** A syndicate buys up
most of the salt wells in the Warsaw area. ** Eight-year old
William Averill Harriman accompanies his father, Edward Henry Harriman,
on an expedition to Siberia.
Buffalo
The Worthington Company absorbs the Snow Steam Pump Works and changes
its name to Worthington's Snow or the Buffalo Works.
Rochester
The Rochester Yacht Club captures the Canada Cup from the Royal
Canadian Yacht Club. ** The West Avenue Methodist Episcopal
Church is completed.
1900
Jan 3
Giuseppe Verdi's Aida opens in New York City.
February
Doubleday, Page publishes Frank Norris' A Man's Woman.
** August Belmont announces the formation of a Rapid Transit
Construction Company, to build a subway in New York City. It will build
the IRT.
Feb 5
Clyde Fitch's adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's novel
Sappho opens at New York's Wallack's Theatre, starring
Olga Nethersole.
Feb 6
Theodore Roosevelt announces he will not accept a nomination as vice
president.
Feb 12
Novelist Frank Norris marries Jeanette Black in New York City.
Feb 24
Contracts are signed in New York City to begin construction on a subway
tunnel.
March
The route of a Broadway subway is announced. Hamilton M. Weed files
plans for an apartment building (the Dorilton) at his Broadway and 71st
Street property.
Mar 5
The New York City police close Sappho for immorality.
Olga Nethersole is arrested. ** David Belasco presents a
one-act-play version of John Luther Long's Madame Butterfly
at New York's Herald Square Theatre. It runs for 24
performances.
Mar 6
Out on bail, Olga Nethersole revives Arthur Wing Pinero's The
Second Mrs. Tanquery.
Mar 24
Ground is broken in front of New York's City Hall for the city's first
subway, to connect Manhattan with Brooklyn. Mayor Van Wyck turns the
first spadeful of earth.
Mar 26
Edward Hugh Sothern stars in an English-version of Gerhardt Hauptmann's
The Sunken Bell at New York's Knickerbocker Theatre.
April
Scribner's publishes Edith Wharton's The Touchstone.
Apr 2
New York's Automobile Club announces plans for a transcontinental
highway.
Apr 3
The Vanderbilt railroad interests take over the Reading, Lehigh and
Erie Railroads. ** Olga Nethersole's trial begins.
Apr 6
Olga Nethersole's trial ends in acquittal. Sappho
reopens and plays for another 86 performances.
Apr 7
Hudson River School painter Frederick Church dies.
Apr 9
Simultaneous versions of Henryk Sienkiewicz' Quo
Vadis? open at Manhattan's New York and Herald Square
theaters.
Apr 14
Andrew Riker, driving an electric automobile, defeats eight cars using
gasoline, to win the first 50-mile auto race, on Long Island.
Apr 23
Buffalo Bill and his Rough Riders appear at Madison Square Garden.
May
Frank Norris, working as a special reader at Doubleday, Page & Co.,
discovers Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie.
May 1
Rochester's street railway system inaugurates "all- night" service,
running until 12:30 AM on weekdays, 1 AM on Saturdays and midnight on
Sundays.
May 19
William Randolph Hearst attends a meeting of the National Association
of Democratic Clubs in New York City, is elected president of the
organization.
May 23
The Associated Press news service is founded, in New York City.
May 28
An exhibit of the paintings of Frederick Church opens at New York
City's Metropolitan Museum.
Jun 19
The Republican convention, meeting in Philadelphia, nominates William
McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.
Jul 8
Military historian Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall is born in Catskill.
August
Theodore Dreiser signs a contract with Doubleday, Page for
Sister Carrie.
Aug 22
The Rochester & Sodus Bay interurban begins servive between Sodus Bay
and Glen Haven.
Sep 7
Edward Hugh Sothern opens in Hamlet at New York's
Garden Theatre.
Sep 8
Hurricanes strike Galveston and Houston, Texas, and New Orleans,
Louisiana. 6,000 people die in Texas. Victor Herbert will conduct a
huge benefit concert in New York's Madison Square Garden for the
victims.
October
Frank Norris moves to a cottage at Roselle, New Jersey, to work on
The Octopus.
Nov 5
Sappho is revived at Wallack's Theatre and plays
another 28 performances.
Nov 6
William McKinley is re-elected President of the United States, with
Theodore Roosevelt as his Vice-President.
Nov 7
Prices soar on the New York Stock Exchange.
Nov 8
Dreiser's Sister Carrie is published, with no
publicity, due to its realistic portrayal of the underclass.
Nov 12
The musical Floradora premieres on Broadway at the
Casino Theater.
Nov 14
Composer Aaron Copland is born in Brooklyn.
Nov 19
New York's New Metropolitan Opera House presents its first opera sung
in English - English composer Arthur Goring Thomas'
Esmerelda.
Nov 20
French actress Sarah Bernhardt arrives in the U. S., gives a press
conference in New York City.
Dec 5
Munitions tycoon Francis Bannerman buys a Hudson River island.
Dec 15
New Yorker Staats-Zeitung publisher Oswald Ottendorfer
dies at the age of 74.
Dec 17
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge's Union Station in Albany opens.
City
The Paderewski Foundation opens. ** The Spuyten Duyvil swing
bridge is built, to serve as a railroad bridge linkingthe upper tip of
Manhattan with the Bronx. ** The Euclid Hall apartment building
on upper Broadway is completed. ** Music publisher J. H. Wehman
dies, in debt for $130,000 for copyright infringement. ** The
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is founded. **
Composer Charles Ives becomes the organist for Central Presbyterian
Church.
State
Population reaches 7,268,009. Rochester's is 163,000; Syracuse's
108,000; Albany's 94,000; Utica's 56,000. ** Librarian Clara
Higgins Smith leads the effort to build the Angelica Free Library.
** Port Gibson ships a record 2,000 pounds of currants, by express
wagon, to New York City. ** Itinerant painter Susan Catherine
Moore Waters dies. ** The Pickle Boat begins making twice-daily
voyages between Old Forge and Inlet, taking supplies to Adirondacks
campers. ** Future Sears, Roebuck executive Robert E. Wood
graduates from West Point.
Batavia
The Crickler Bottling Works is founded. ** The approximate date
Milo B. Langworthy builds a shed for parking shoppers' horses on State
Street. ** Alice Day (Gardner), working as a clerk in her father's
law office, enrolls in the School of Law of the University of
Buffalo.
David Minor
Eagles Byte Historical Research
Rochester, New York
716 264-0423
http://home.eznet.net/~dminor